Saturday, July 14, 2007

Timor's struggle and foxing with the Fiji media

Fairfax's Clive Lind, who visited Timor-Leste along with me as part of the recent New Zealand media monitoring mission in the election campaign, has followed up with a two-page weekend spread in the Dominion Post - "East Timor's struggle for democracy". Not online at the Fairfax Stuff website, unfortunately - but it is now online at the Pacific Media Centre. I would have liked something about the "regime change" background included in this piece! The NZ mission's final report is finally now available. Over at the Stuck in Fiji M.U.D. blog (Laminar Flow), Fiji Media Council chair Daryl Tarte has come in for a roasting for his comments about blogs being a "scourge" ! The FMC has been a frequent target over ethics, media bias and self-censorship and Laminar Flow applauds blogs filling the gap. In fact, LF likens the FMC to "the fox guarding the hen house". LF was quoted on Bloginterviewer as saying there was a demand for "socio-political analysis" on Fiji:

"Fiji has [had] 4 coups in 20 years and probably a milestone [millstone?] in the maturation of Fiji's democracy." Alleged misinformation and media bias are among LF's pet hates.

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